Setting goals on a bad day? Yes or no?

My tendency to make over-achieving goals & plans when I’m on a top of the world, became some kind of a tradition and also a very successful formula for failure and losing confidence!

It’s easy to forget the amount of hard work and time needed for anything meaningful to achieve. So, in a day when all my superpowers were lit and I’d accomplish more than “normal” person (or “me on a bad day”) could in a week or two – my perspective would change and I would make my plans and goals in the most unrealistic way.

Of course – it wouldn’t necessarily be unrealistic if I could have a complete control over every aspect of my life, and especially being in a zone each and every day. You know the zone? When ideas flow freely, solutions just come up out of nowhere, there are no distractions, there is a high motivation and discipline without an effort, beautiful sunny day, all the relationships flourish, each puzzle fits its own place, you have a clear vision of the bright future and a complete sense of your possibilities and how and why and when do you want to accomplish certain goals. How many days like these are possible to occur in each month? Ah. Sad truth. Not too many. What’s even worse, very soon I’d realise how far behind I am from my unrealistic schedule and I’d just become less motivated.

I was doing this for years! It’s deadly. Please, do not do that to yourself.

The second mistake arises from the first one

The second mistake is – trying to produce and find triggers to be highly motivated. Luckily, I stopped with this one, however, I want to cover it a bit for your sake.

Everything is easy when we’re motivated. It’s not a rocket science. Nevertheless, if motivation would be the only source of strength & action – no one in the world would ever accomplish anything. The main difference between success and failure is – how much you can do – unmotivated. Who are you on your bad, or “flat” day? That’s what counts the most because these days happen to be the 90% of the days.

What to do instead?

There is something useful I had learned in this game of trying to accomplish so many things simultaneously. It was the realisation of how important it is to put myself into a certain state of a mind early in the morning. It’s like steering my sails into a certain direction. By doing so, flat days would become a bit more “curved” 😀 and bad days would become just “flat” days. That’s when you realise the strength of having a routine (formed of certain habits). You do not need to be motivated to do your thing. You need a habit. Motivation is a bonus, a dessert, nothing more than that. It’s the temporary accelerator of your abilities. It’s a switch “ON” to your superpowers. An amazing gift that needs to be used in a proper way. Here is the article about installing habits.

How to use the best day(s)?

By starting out with good habits that will serve as an anchor for the future bad/flat days. How can you steer your sails in the best direction? What works for you? If you already know, do that. If you don’t, experiment until you find it.

For me, it’s the meditation and Wim Hof Breathing Technique and Cold Exposure, followed by the fruit breakfast or a smoothie, a bit of exercise and writing my daily diary with my action plans for the day. Working for an hour or two, then taking a long walk, or a short run, then return to get some more work done for a few hours, then a nap etc.
To be honest, it’s not exactly like this on my best days, because on my best days I just can’t stop working on my music! However, I’m trying to balance and I realised how important is to know when to stop. Stop, when it’s still good!!! I’m practising that a lot after I discovered how that actually prolongs the best days chain. I’d wake up eager to continue!! Is there anything better than looking forward to the new day? It’s like being a child again.

How to use the flat/bad/neutral day(s)? Make a plan! Set up a goal!

If you don’t have a plan yet, now it’s time to make one. With breaking big tasks into smaller ones – you can assume the amount of time needed for each. Since this is the flat “superpowers – off” day, you will count those hours needed, more realistically. You will also anticipate many possible challenges and problems and add some more time, which is also quite beneficial.

With each step forward, sense of accomplishment grows and it will only get better and easier.

To give your best attempt in each day generates far more productive hours than seizing your superpowers-on days – only. Need an example? What can we learn from the first people who reached the South Pole? Read here.